Salmon Fishing. 185 



succeed there ; good bye to my chance to day." 

 To fish this narrow gut, for it is nothing else, 

 is not easy. Trees overhang it ; thick bushes 

 fringe it ; and, if you shorten your line too 

 much, salmo's sharp eye will be sure to catch 

 sight of you. " What a nuisance !" I called out, 

 when in making the second cast, a tough blade 

 of grass on the other side caught the fly, and 

 held it in durance vile. " Well done, little rod," 

 said I, as I dragged the fly thence, and it bent 

 almost double, and then returned to its shape 

 again, as straight, and, as I thought, as sound 

 as ever. Just as the fly in the next cast had 

 worked round opposite the rock, swift as a flash 

 of light up came a fish, and before I could look 

 round, snap went the top-joint above the ferule ; 

 the result, no doubt, of the sudden wrench 

 from the blade of grass before mentioned. 



Most ludicrous must the situation I was in 

 now have seemed to any one who witnessed it ! 

 The rod bereft of the top-joint which kept 



bobbing about on the line, now half-sunk, and 



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